High Performance Schools
High performance schools are healthy, comfortable, energy efficient, resource efficient, water efficient, safe, secure, adaptable, and easy to operate and maintain. These qualities help school districts assist students to achieve higher test scores, retain quality teachers and staff, reduce operating cost, increase average daily attendance, and reduce liability, while at the same time being friendly to the environment. High performance design can have a positive effect on health and comfort, and design strategies such as daylighting have been shown to enhance student learning. Good indoor air quality is essential for teacher and student health. Good design also produces more comfortable environments with proper lighting, air temperature, humidity, and noise levels. These factors reduce distractions and create environments where students and teachers can see clearly, hear accurately, and not feel too warm or too cold.
High performance design is also cost effective because it creates environments that are energy and resource efficient. These increased efficiencies save money on utility bills and are so valuable that some organizations will provide building owners with funds to have them included in the design. Furthermore, healthier environments can bring money into the school by lowering absenteeism and increasing funding based on average daily attendance. These financial, health, and productivity benefits are the result of integrated design: understanding how building elements affect one another to optimize the performance of the entire school.
On June 4, 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the "21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act," that commits over $20 billion of funding over the next five years to high performance schools. CHPS is recognized as one of the standards that projects would need to meet in order to qualify for the H.R. 3021 legislation funding. H.R. 3021 was referred to the Senate on August 1, 2008.
Read more about this topic: Collaborative For High Performance Schools
Famous quotes containing the words high, performance and/or schools:
“The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by and by.”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“Kind are her answers,
But her performance keeps no day;
Breaks time, as dancers,
From their own music when they stray.”
—Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
“The schools begin with what they call the elements, and where do they end?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)